The next morning, a messenger summoned her to the Hokage's office. Sakura hugged her arms to herself, wondering how long she could put off an official summons. Clearly, her neighbour had finally had enough and snitched on her to her mentor. She hated the thought of her two former teachers treating her with reproach; or worse, pity. She knew Kakashi would have only reported her to the Hokage out of concern for her mental wellbeing rather than a genuine fear she was keeping secrets of the "destroy the village" variety, but it still made her stomach twist with anxiety and shame. Even with all the time that had passed since she had woken up in this world, she still wasn't ready for the conversation that now seemed inevitable.

When she opened the door to the Hokage's office she was surprised to find that not only Tsunade and Kakashi were there, but also Naruto and Hinata. The Hyuuga surprised her; Naruto might have been included for moral support (though again, it would have had the opposite effect in her current state) but what did Hinata have to do with her strange behaviour?

Tsunade gestured for her to shut the door. "Now that we've all arrived, we can begin." The Hokage was wearing her hat, which was another confusing detail. "I'm sure you all know what we're here to discuss." She glanced at all of them in turn, before her gaze lingered on Sakura.

Here we go.

"We need to discuss the fate of the two last members of the Uchiha clan: Obito and Sasuke."

A confused huff of air left her lungs before she could stop it. What?

"Their crimes are, naturally, severe. They have harmed not just Konoha but other prominent villages and nations; all of whom will be seeking retribution. However, the other Kages have acknowledged their assistance during the final battle, and, coupled with Naruto's testimony to their character, have agreed to defer to Konoha's judgement at this time."

To Sakura's surprise, it was Hinata who spoke up. "They're going to back down just like that?"

Tsunade's mouth twitched. "The other villages believe it is in the best interest of continued peace. Plus, I think they'd be willing to give Naruto pretty much whatever he wants at this point."

Naruto chuckled sheepishly. "I don't know about that, but I'm glad they aren't going to interfere with Sasuke again. Or Obito, of course."

"They still need to be punished, though." Sakura was surprised to hear the words coming from her own mouth. The others turned to her, and she had no choice but to continue. "I just mean, the other villages won't be happy if we let Sasuke-kun and Obito-san get away without any punishment at all. And they're still a security risk." She thought of Obito's intense eyes, Sasuke's repeated betrayals.

Naruto opened his mouth, but Tsunade cut him off with a jerk of her hand. "You're quite right, Sakura, which is why I have summoned you four here today." She handed four scrolls to Hinata at the far end, who took one and passed the rest to Naruto to pass to Kakashi. Kakashi passed the final scroll to Sakura, and she took it without meeting his eye.

The scroll outlined a plan that was, frankly, a little surprising. "You want to move them to the old Uchiha compound?"

"It's Naruto's idea. For a seven-day trial period they would be allowed to spend time at the compound instead of their cells. We would keep them at opposite ends, of course, and post a security detail on standby in the middle. We're not exactly short-staffed now that everyone's too busy recovering from the war to need our services." Tsunade made a face. "Frankly, even that much might be overkill. But it leaves us free to focus on the rehabilitation aspect of their sentence. That's where you four come in: you will be designated as the primary security detail. You'd be fitted with a panic button to summon backup if anything goes wrong, but barring an emergency or breach, you would be the only ones to interact with the prisoners directly."

"Why us, Hokage-sama?" Kakashi's quiet voice spoke up. He glanced at Sakura. "Do you think we're the best choices, considering our histories with the prisoners?"

"That's precisely why you have been chosen, Kakashi. Naruto may be a loose cannon," she paused while Naruto squawked in indignation, "but frankly, he's the only one who could stop Sasuke, with the added bonus that he might also rehabilitate him into a decent person. Hinata will be assisting him, both as someone familiar with control seals like the ones being used on the prisoners, and as a former classmate and a peer of similar social background."

"Sakura-chan's not assigned to Sasuke too?" Naruto asked, whiskers turning down. "That's not fair to Sakura-chan…"

In fact, Sakura couldn't have been more relieved that she was avoiding seeing Sasuke in close quarters. Not that the alternative was much better. She glanced uneasily in Kakashi's direction: his body language was stiff.

"Sakura will be assisting Kakashi in guarding and rehabilitating Obito. As a medic and a genjutsu adept strong enough to have escaped the Infinite Tsukuyomi, she's a perfect choice. In fact, Obito has requested her personally."

"What?" Kakashi and Sakura spoke at the same time.

"Yes, I was surprised too, but it seems her bravery during the battle against Madara left an impression on Obito. Of course, Sakura would be an excellent choice regardless." She gave Sakura a warm smile, who tried to return it without feeling sick.

Kakashi stepped forward. "Hokage-sama, don't you think this is premature-"

"-it is already decided. You will convene at the Uchiha compound gates at 0900 tomorrow. Leave all weapons behind."

Kakashi caught up with Sakura on the way back to their apartment complex. "You sure you're up for this?"

"Are you questioning my abilities, Kakashi? Because if so, take it up with the Hokage."

"I'm just asking if you're alright. Last night..."

She laughed awkwardly, cutting him off. "Yeah, sorry about that; it was just a bad dream. I feel fine now." This wasn't a total lie: Obito wanted to see her for some reason, and after last night she realised she wanted to see him too. It felt like a step in...if not the right direction, then at least somewhere that wasn't here.

She began to walk again, and Kakashi jogged to catch up.

"Any idea why Obito requested you?" He asked, reading her mind in that annoying/terrifying way of his.

"I guess it's like Tsunade says, he was impressed that I broke out of his genjutsu."

"I guess so." Kakashi didn't seem convinced.

He's going to be trouble. Inner Sakura paced restlessly.

Sakura stopped, placing her hands on Kakashi's shoulders. He seemed taken aback by their closeness, but she held his gaze. "If we're going to work together, we need to trust one another." She put on her best 'I am still that seventeen-year-old girl you never felt the need to worry about before now' face. "I know I've been...out of sorts lately, but the whole world is still recovering from the Infinite Tsukuyomi. You and Naruto and the others don't know what it was like for the rest of us."

That much, at least, is true.

Kakashi's dark eyes were shrewd, his expression hard to read. But after a moment his shoulders slumped beneath her hands. "I do trust you."

"I trust you too, Kakashi. Sensei," she added belatedly.

DAY ONE

The Uchiha complex was maintained by a retinue of caretakers, but it still had the musty odour of a place that had not been inhabited for many years. Team Obito had been assigned to a large house near the west end of the complex for the duration of the two-week trial period.

It was the first day, and the air was tense. Sakura and Kakashi currently sat at one end of a warm kotatsu table, facing across from the man who had almost ended the world.

"This is cozy," Obito commented, rubbing his hands together. He wore a dark green house kimono that matched the control seal snaking across his brow. "Just like I remember, back in the good old days." The table in front of him was littered with scraps of mandarin skin, and Sakura watched as he grabbed another from the bowl between them and began to peel, seemingly without a care in the world.

"Obito," Kakashi began, but after a few seconds it was apparent no more words were forthcoming. He grabbed out his copy of Icha Icha Tactics as if on instinct, and Obito leaned forward.

"Hey Kakashi, is that a dirty book? You're just gonna read that in front of a young girl like Sakura-chan?" He shook his head. "And they say I'm a villain."

"I'm used to it," Sakura said, at the same time as Kakashi snapped, "you are a villain."

"Jeez, Kakashi, tell me what you really think." Obito turned from him and leaned closer to Sakura. In a mock-whisper he said, "I'm sorry about him. He was much more responsible before I died. Perhaps a part of my personality rubbed off on him along with my eye."

Kakashi's eyes were fixed on the book. Sakura wasn't sure he was even breathing.

"Or maybe," Obito continued, "he picked up bad habits after losing Rin-chan. She was always the moral centre of our little team. Hey Sakura, you're a medic too, right?" He squinted, the scarred side of his face warping. "Aside from your pink hair, you kinda look like her. Make sure Kakashi doesn't do to you what he did to-"

Bang. Kakashi slammed the book on the table so forcefully that the bowl of mandarins tipped over, sending fruit rolling over the sides of the kotatsu and onto the floor. He stood up from the table, breathing heavily.

Sakura couldn't help but stare; this was possibly the most emotional she had ever seen the man. He was angry, certainly, but mostly he seemed to be in pain. The medic side of her wanted to reach out to him, but she stayed distant, waiting.

Obito tsked. "Clumsy. Want me to get some more from the kitchen?" He moved to stand, but Kakashi threw a hand up.

"Don't." He stalked from the room.

"Grab some tea while you're there!" Obito called after him, returning to his half-peeled mandarin. "Well, he certainly warmed up over the years."

"What was all that about?" Sakura asked, a tad reproachfully.

Obito grinned, scooting around the edge of the table until he was sitting where Kakashi had been. "I just wanted to talk to you in private for a second." His lips barely moved and his voice was so quiet that Sakura felt herself leaning toward him against her better judgement.

"About what?"

"I think you know." Obito raised his eyebrows. "I'm done with this world. Are you?"

A prickle of electricity ran up her spine even as a chill ran down it. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on medic-chan, you seem smarter than this. I'm talking about you removing my control seals so that we can escape."

She should have pressed her panic button and reported him then and there, but something stayed her hand. Instead, she scoffed. "There's no 'we' here. What reason would I have to betray my village?"

"It's only a betrayal if this actually is your village," Obito whispered. He reached out, placing his hand over hers. "But you have your doubts, don't you?"

Blood pounded in her ears, drowning out all other thoughts but the man before her. Did she doubt? Did she dream?

"Don't you want to go back?" He asked her, and something inside her said yes. "I can help you. But you'll need to help me too." He glanced at a point over her shoulder and suddenly her hand was freed from his grasp.

Kakashi re-entered the room. It had been less than a minute since he'd left, but to Sakura it had been an age.

"What are you doing?" he glared at Obito.

"Just getting to know Sakura-chan better," Obito replied mildly. "If we're going to be spending time together then we should get properly acquainted. She says I was too hard on you before, so I hope you accept my apology." He held out his hand.

"You're in my seat," was all Kakashi said, and Obito moved back to the opposite side of the kotatsu. He didn't provoke Kakashi again, and the remainder of the day passed without incident.

Sakura's mission scroll sat on the bedside table where she had left it the night before. It was, in some ways, a straightforward task: talk to Obito, try and rehabilitate him, stop him from doing something stupid like trying to escape. To assist in this final objective, both he and Sasuke had been fitted with two seals. The first was the green seal on his brow; it looked a little like the ones Hyuuga used on their branch members, but was apparently designed to suppress chakra flow. The second was a silencing seal like those Danzo had used on Root agents; but instead of silencing their tongues if they tried to reveal secrets, this one sat over their hearts and would activate if the subject exceeded a certain range. If either of the last Uchiha tried to leave Konoha or mould a large amount of chakra, they would die within seconds.

"I can help you. But you'll need to help me too."

How could she even manage such a thing? She would need to get him out of the complex without Kakashi or the backup team stopping her, which would hopefully buy her a few extra seconds of cutting into his chest and removing the silencing seal before they were attacked by a small army of ANBU. And then, if they somehow survived all of that, they would finally be able to leave the village limits and work on removing his suppression seal so he could use his space-time jutsu to get her home.

Hypothetically, of course.

She gazed outside her bedroom window: another clear night, cold and crisp. It would be so easy to close her eyes and snuggle deeper into her nice warm blankets. Maybe the solution would come to her in a dream...

Bad idea!

She sat up, kicking the blankets aside and heading for the front door. It groaned feebly when she opened it, reminding her that it was still broken.

Kakashi's door was closed, and it was impossible to tell if he had fixed his lock since she had broken it the other night. She suspected not, but knocked anyway. This was just a neighbourly visit, she told herself, not another panicked invasion.

The mission scroll, she realised, was still in her hand. She tried to pocket it before remembering she was in her pyjamas and not her mission fatigues. Instead, she kicked the door of her apartment back open with her foot and tossed the scroll in the general direction of her couch.

A half-second later, Kakashi's door opened.

"Evening." She smiled widely, ignoring the horrid creak of her door swinging shut behind her. "Sorry to bother you so late."

"It's not that late," Kakashi said. "Major improvement on 3am, anyway. What's wrong?"

I can't sleep. "Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to know if you could teach me some more constellations." Or play a board game or tell a story or cook a damn curry. I don't mind; just keep me awake.

He cocked his head to one side and stared at her for a long moment before finally stepping back to let her in. "If you like."

They stood at the glass doors of the balcony, looking out at the mess of stars. "The Maiden and the others are the ones I know best, but there's plenty of stars that we use in the field for navigation and that sort of thing. You already know those, right?"

I think I remember those. "Doesn't ring a bell. Tell me everything."

He told her about the north star, the bears, the four sacred animals, and all twelve signs of the zodiac. If the constellation wasn't visible in the sky then he would tap out the rough pattern on the glass. He made Sakura four cups of tea, and when they weren't talking about stars, they talked about Obito.

"It's foolish," Kakashi said, "but despite everything that he's done, I still want to help him."

"Don't forget who you're talking to. I understand better than anyone what it's like to keep hoping that the person who hurt you will still come back and make things right."

"And it seems you were right to do so."

Sakura laughed mirthlessly. "He returned, but I'm not naive enough to believe that everything will go back to how it was." She didn't know that Sasuke anymore, and she wouldn't waste another second pretending she could still love him. Not in any world.

There was silence, and she realised what Kakashi must be thinking. She waved her hands frantically, as if to dispel the sudden depression she had created. "But that doesn't mean rehabilitation is impossible! They may have lost their way, but who's to say they couldn't find it again in time? Especially with us helping them."

Kakashi patted her head, and she didn't have the heart to stop him. "You're right, Sakura-chan. I just need to be more patient with Obito. I keep thinking we're meant to fix him within a single week, but this probation period is just the start of a much longer process. All we have to do is prove he's willing to try."

Sakura thought of Obito's words, and the fact that she still hadn't turned him in. Was she protecting Obito because part of her believed him, or did she just want to protect Kakashi for a little longer? Both were bad reasons, and yet the words still wouldn't come.

"Tell me another constellation story," she said instead.

"Oh, I don't know," Kakashi shrugged. "I think I've mentioned every star in the sky already. I could tell you about the Moon Princess Kaguya, but everyone knows that one."

The mug slipped from her grasp and landed on the carpet with a low clunk. "What?"

"You know, the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter? He finds a baby in a bamboo stalk and she grows up and reveals she's actually the princess of the Moon Kingdom." He bent down to retrieve her mug. "It's a pretty famous children's story. Did your parents never tell it to you?"

Did they? "They must have." She had a faint recollection of a story about an old married couple and a handsome prince, but that could have been any number of fairy tales from her childhood. It could also have been her dreams trying to fill the gaps and undermine her true memories.

We don't seriously believe Obito, do we? Her inner voice scoffed, but it was faint, like a radio that had been turned way down.

She didn't sleep that night.

DAY TWO

By the time Sakura arrived at the compound, breathless and red-faced, Kakashi and Obito were already sitting at the kotatsu with their heads bent over something in Obito's hands.

"Sorry I'm late," she said between gulps of air. "I lost track of time." In truth she'd been so groggy from lack of sleep that she hadn't heard the tinny sound of her alarm clock at all.

"You sound like me," both Obito and Kakashi said at the same time. They glanced at each other, and for a moment they seemed like different people to the ones Sakura knew.

"I was worried you'd forgotten about me," Obito smiled.

She squirmed under his gaze. "Like I said, I just lost track of time."

"I brought something," Kakashi said softly, pointing to the thing in Obito's hands.

Obito held it up, and Sakura leaned closer. It was an old team photo, just like the one Team Seven had taken. But the teacher in the middle was clearly the Fourth Hokage, and the two boys on the sides were younger versions of the men who sat before her. The only face she didn't recognise was the brown-haired girl in the middle.

"I figured it's probably been a while since Obito saw any photos from the old days," Kakashi said. His voice was even, but as Sakura took her seat at his side she could see his white-knuckled fists hidden under the table. "This one's a copy I made from mine, so you can keep it if you want, by the way."

"Thank you, Kakashi." Obito's smile widened. "I needed this, to remind me why I'm here."

Kakashi's hands finally relaxed. "That's what we're here for, after all; to help you find your way. Isn't that right, Sakura-chan?"

She knew he was just being nice, trying to give her some of the credit after her apparently-successful attempt to cheer him up last night. But her heavy eyes fell to the table rather than meet his gaze.

"You look tired, Sakura-chan," Obito commented. "Feel free to lie down for a bit if you need." He gave her wrist a comforting squeeze. "It's not healthy to stay up all night, you know."

"I didn't stay up all night," Sakura lied, but her eyelids were so heavy she thought she might keel over then and there. Her body was calling in her entire sleep debt all at once, and suddenly it seemed foolish to try and stay awake in the first place.

"I can take care of Obito for a while," Kakashi assured her, "nothing will happen, I promise."

She didn't even have the energy to respond, slipping out from the kotatsu and grabbing one of the cushions to put under her head. It was instinct to put a wall to her back while she lay facing the others in the room, and she shifted on the tatami mat a little until she felt comfortable. The room was warm and she had been trained to sleep under far worse conditions.

"Just for a little while..."

"Mama?"

Darkness resolved into a hospital room. A pink-haired woman lay in one of the beds, her eyes closed and a feeding tube running from her mouth to a series of beeping life support machines.

"Mama, if you can hear me, you need to come home."

Sarada, the daughter Sakura had abandoned all hope of ever seeing again, sat on a plastic hospital chair with her eyes closed and both hands wrapped around the unconscious Sakura's left hand. At the point where they touched, chakra glowed faintly.

"Papa and I are trying to reach you." Sarada spoke again, squeezing her mother's hand as she did. Behind her, her father stood with hands on her shoulders. Uchiha Sasuke's eyes were also closed, frowning in apparent concentration as he too appeared to be channeling chakra through his hands. "We're using our combined strength to send you this message, because we need your help.

"You're trapped in a genjutsu and nothing we can do seems to break it from the outside. Tsunade-sama says that if you don't wake up soon, we might lose you forever. Her lower lip wobbled.

Tsunade was there too, standing at the foot of Sakura's bed with a clipboard and a grave expression. She appeared to be making notes on Sakura's vitals, presumably to see if they changed at all.

"Mama, you have to wake yourself up from the inside. I know you can do it; your subconscious has probably already handed you the key to breaking yourself out. But the dream will try to fight you. It doesn't want you to wake up, so fight back as hard as you can.

"It will tell you to trust your friends, but they're all lying. Wherever you are, it'll be the faces you trust most trying to keep you there. But it's not really them, Mama. They're all here, waiting for you to wake up."

There was another figure in the room, sitting by Uchiha Sakura's other side. Like Sarada he was holding one of Sakura's hands in his, but unlike Sarada there was no glow of chakra. He simply held her hand, occasionally running his thumb along her palm.

"You can't trust your friends, Mama. Instead, you have to listen to your enemies. They are the only ones who will tell you the truth, because the dream wants to paint the truth as dangerous."

The darkness began to creep back in from the edges of the room, dissolving the images of her loved ones in static.

Sakura sat up so quickly that her muscle memory brought her to her feet and into a fighting stance before she could even fully recall where she was.

"Bad dream?"

Obito and Kakashi were still sitting at the kotatsu where she had left them, a deck of plastic hanafuda cards laid out between them. One watched her with concern, the other amusement.

She stared at them, trying to read their hearts. Which one could she trust?

"I said, did you have a bad dream, Sakura-chan?" Obito leaned forward, his eyes appearing to laugh at her.

("I'm done with this world. Are you?")

("You have your doubts, don't you?")

("Don't you want to go back?")

"Yes."